Whole flock gone

[lifein1840]

Hello. I am looking to see of anyone might have a clue to our mystery. Yesterday evening we went out to the coop to collect eggs and all 12 hens and our 1 rooster were dead in the coop. None of them in the run. They were all on one side of the coop and it was the strangest thing. No indication of a predator. They're all different ages, the oldest being 3 years and the youngest not even a year.

They had stopped laying for several months, so we added in black sunflower oil seeds, all stock sweet feed, and catfish food pellets. Within 2 days they started laying again. This was a little over a week ago. My thought initially is if it were poison, then wouldn't they be scattered through out the run and the coop?..and they all died the same afternoon... any thoughts?

do you have rat poison out anywhere?

 

[Hens on the Prairie]

Such a tragedy. If there are no visible marks on any of your chickens you may want to contact your local agriculture department and test them for bird flu.

 

[sandburRanch]

Did lightning strike near the area?

I can't see a predator not causing such a ruckus that feathers wouldn't be all over with that many chickens in a coop .

 

[EmmaDonovan]

I'm so sorry for your loss. What a mystery! Is it possible a poisoned rodent got into the coop and the chickens ate it?

 

[BarnyardChaos]

following, but not with the popcorn icon.

 

[Stellasmomma]

I hope you find out what happened to them I am so sorry for your loss please update if you find the cause

 

[akrafel]

Some predators kill everything that moves and some pile their prey.

To me.. it sounds very much like predator activity and certainly would NOT be dismissed so easily.

Pictures or description of your set up as well as general location in the world may help rule certain ones in or out.

Sorry for your loss!

Hope you get answers.

ETA: injuries are easy to miss.

Check to see if their necks were broken. Canines can grab chickens and shake them hard, break their necks, leaving no external wounds, and drop them and go to next victim. The chickens may have piled up because there was no other place to go to get away. Some dogs do this for fun.

 

[KBaker71]

We are in north Texas. The setup is a small leland shed and the run is a chain link dog run covered with chicken wire and the top is a chicken wire roof. They weren't piled up but they definitely were not scattered. To be honest it looks as if someone went in there lined them up and executed them... does that make sense? We checked the perimeter for any holes, or possible ways a predator would have gotten in and didn't find anything. No teeth marks, no blood, and none of them had missing feathers that we could see. We aren't ruling anything out. I was just wondering if anyone had heard of such a thing happening and if it could have been any of the new stuff we added to their feed. It was shocking because they hadn't laid since before the heat of the summer, but 2 days after adding the above to their feed they were back laying again.

Ok keep me posted on this one! I'm also curious...could it have been bad feed?

 

[myriamg]

Here in Costa Rica, my neighbor found 3 of her chicks dead, and the rest were looking not well and eating very little. She was feeding them a medicated chick feed, not knowing what was wrong, she switched to another chick feed, and I also suggested she feed them scrambled eggs with garlic, soon the rest of them recovered, and are all well. Additionally a few days earlier, I was at the vet. and a farmer was there, complaining that the chicken feed for layers he bought was not good and they all stopped laying eggs. I am suspecting that perhaps due to raw material shortages, they might be substituting ingredients in feed, that can hurt them. We don't have access to organic or non GMO feed here so it's just regular feed we can buy.

 

[charlie1051]

Hi, I too am sorry that your birds are dead. With no sign of blood, no signs of attack and no forced entry; you're left with either food or the environment around and outside your coop/run. Did you have anyone fumigating, spraying or crop-dusting near your property? It would have to be a farmer or individual using a VERY toxic chemical though, so it's probably unlikely that this would be the cause. But I work with chemicals and I do agree with another poster when they mentioned it could be copper-that would do it. Lead is another possibility. I'd 100% get those dudes checked out by a lab ASAP, so if it was an environmental issue or some weird, random toxicity- you can prevent it from happening again. I would also have the water tested and take a few soil samples. Best of luck to you.